AIBU to be gobsmacked at this re Facebook?

I have been trying to get my act together for a whole week regarding a project I had to do for a Sociology course.It entailed having to prove or disprove that people's interactions are moving away from the normal face to face stuff, with people just 'speaking' to other people on the internet, texting, emails etc. Eventually decided to concentrate on Facebook, as that seems to be how most people communicate now. So I 'invented' a false person, added a profile photo of a very attractive woman, sent out some friend invites, but only to folk who would have attended a local school (not mine). I included a fair ratio of men and women, then sat back expecting nothing.I was amazed to get, not only people accepting my friend requests, but other people asking me to be their friend!I, as myself, know some of these people, but the persona I invented...name, age, photo, school, etc, is not real. Yet these people accepted me without question.I am totally gobsmacked, just cannot believe that folk will just believe this stuff. Are they so desperate for friends they will accept anyone or what?It has certainly given me an angle for my project, but what are these people thinking?

there was a really sad case in the news recently whereby a young woman took her own life after she had written that she would on FB. Her Mum afterwards said "where were her friends then? She has has hundreds of friends on FB and not one of them helped her"She obviously didn't really know them and they certainly weren't her friends - some of them had written things like "oh, she's always saying stuff lke this - it's all talk, she won't actually do it"

I'm not sure how setting up a fake profile on FB proves/disproves that people's interactions are moving away from face to face to online. What are you hoping to demonstrate? Surely you are only including a subset of individuals who have a proven track record for using online interaction via FB... you won't have included anybody who relies solely on fact to face interactions.

Are you using your fake profile to interact with people? Or passively observing as people become your friend? Do you plan to set up any more profiles with, perhaps, different pictures to see if you observe the same patterns of behaviour.

I wouldn't actively seek anyone out but I have sometimes addd people I really only vaguely remember.Some of the friend requests may be from people who see that their friends have added you and they think 'oh this person must have been at school/college with me and [my friend], better add her too so she doesn't think I'm being rude or I've forgotten who she is, even though I have'.

YANBU but also a bit U to be surprised! It is too easy to be detached from RL with online media.

I don't accept suggestions/requests from people I don't know, even when we have a lot of mutual friends. If I've never met them what's the point?

I have a few MNers on my FB though, through a support thread.

I am always a bit when I see massive friend lists - it used to be the same with MSN Messenger in my teens - people adding anyone and everyone and then sitting there typing small talk just because they were online.

I think it's wierd that you set up a fake accountare you on one of these mickey mouse courses?Like David beckham studies ? Any course that involves setting up a fake fb account isn't going to get you a great job IMO

'It entailed having to prove or disprove that people's interactions are moving away from the normal face to face stuff, with people just 'speaking' to other people on the internet, texting, emails etc. '

I don't think you needed to set up a fake accountit's obvious that people have moved away from face to face contact due to Internet and emails

A lot of people do add a lot of 'friends' for things like games though, at one point (when I was housebound) I was playing games on there and had hundreds of facebook friends to play the games with- it was a seperate account though with no personal info on and it wasn't even in my real name

I don't know how well everyone really knows each other but it's more to the point of your research isn't it? Lots of people coming together to interact online regarding parenting and many other topics including bum sex. Most people don't have connections to others on here so it would be morer conclusive to your needs.

Me and a friend did this. We wern't conducting a sociology experiment. We were bored, unemployed and thought it would be funny. We added loads of random photos of either rmassive groups, tagged a random person in the middle that you couldn't see. Then added some photos like this and like this people actually added us and blokes tried it on.. Which never stopped being funny actually

I don't 'chat' on FB i play the games. We are warned in work about FB so i don't indulge, family are on there and i privately message them but don't do a daily or any, 'status'.

OP -Someone else that i know did a similar research project (for sociology)but did it via qualitative research methods, are you sure that you were actually supposed to go as far as setting up an account and what was the question that you were answering?

Is this thread real or have we all also just easily believed another lie, i find it ironic that there is criticism of FB from those that indulge in arguements and voice opinions to and with people they will never meet (and MN gets vicious) on a internet forum.